S04 DIANA MALLORY She smiled, but at the same moment she turned extremely white, and as she fell back in her chair, Diana saw her clench her hand as though in a strong effort for physical self-control. Diana sprang up, * Let mo get you some water 1 * 'Don't go, Don't tell anybody. Just open that window.' Diana obeyed, and the north-west wind sweeping in, seemed to revive her pale companion almost at once. 11 am very sorry!' said Miss Vincent, affeer a few minutes, in her natural voice. * Now I am all right/ She drank some water, and looked up. * Shall I tell you the story he told me ? It is very short, and it might change your view of him/ 1 If you feel able—if you are strong enough'—said Diana uncomfortably, wondering why it should matter to Miss Vincent or anybody else, what view she might happen to take of Mr. Barton, 1 He said he remembered his father—who was a house- painter—a very decent and hard-working man—having been out of work, for eight weeks. He used to go out looking for work every day,—and there was the usual story, of course, of pawning or selling all their possessions, —odd jobs,—increasing starvation,—and so on. Mean- while, his only pleasure—he was ten—was to go with his sister after school to look at two shops in the East India Dock Koad,—one a draper's with a " Christmas Bazaar "—* the other a confectioner's. He declares it made him not more starved, but less, to look at the goodies and the cakes; they imagined eating them; buj» they were both too sickly, he thinks, to be really hungry. As for the Bazaar, with its dolls and toys, and its Father Christmas, and bright lights, they both thought ft Paradise, They used to flatten their noses against; the glass ^sometimes a